


Only Then I am Human / Only Then I am Clean

by Enbies_Committing_Felonies



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Bittersweet, Found Family, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, It's an experience, My First Work in This Fandom, Religious Guilt, alex hears take me to church for the first time, it's the found family for me, no beta we die like sunset curve (except for bobby), not me projecting my religious truama-, not me using one of my pastor's ACTUAL sermons-, religious truama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 13:02:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30089511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enbies_Committing_Felonies/pseuds/Enbies_Committing_Felonies
Summary: Alex listens to 'Take Me to Church' by Hozier for the first time, and he doesn't have to be told the meaning. He knows. Heknows.
Relationships: Alex & his faith, Alex & his gayness, Alex Mercer & Alex Mercer's parents, Alex Mercer & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	Only Then I am Human / Only Then I am Clean

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in the 'Julie and the Phantoms' fandom, and I was just waiting for an excuse to start writing one!! This is based on a post from tumblr.  
> (I'm @enbies-and-felonies)

The first time Alex heard 'Take Me to Church' he was on the verge of dozing off, which was an interesting feeling as a ghost, like he was a boat tethered to a dock and he might drift away if he fell asleep for too long. The evening sun was casting lazy beams through the windows of Julie's garage, and he smiled as the warmth hit his face, causing his eyelids to droop lower. At least as a ghost, he could still enjoy some of the simpler things in life.

An old radio crackled on the little table nearby, playing songs Alex had never heard before. He enjoyed a few of them, but others he rolled his eyes at. Idly, he wondered if Reggie and Luke were having fun with Julie; She had taken them on a trip to see some sights, but Alex had opted to stay home, feeling listless, and decided to catch up on whatever new tunes had came out since he was alive.

He bopped his head slightly to 'Bad Liar' and hummed a bit to 'Counting Stars'. He had missed out on a lot of good songs. Yawning, he stretched and settled deeper into the couch, giving a contented sigh as the next song started playing, a strong piano coming in and setting the tone.

Alex liked the man's voice, and he raised an eyebrow at the lyrics.

" _-She's the giggle at a funeral / Knows everybody's disapproval / I should've worshipped her sooner._ "

He sat up and cocked his head by a margin, feeling a tiny, guilty thrill at the way his lips quirked at the lyrics. There was a forbidden excitement that came from it's gentle blasphemy.

" _Every Sunday's gettin' more bleak / A fresh poison each week._ "

His heart twinged. A choir, a pulpit, fire-and-brimstone preaching, he was just a kid-

" _We were born sick / You heard them say it._ "

He sucked in a breath and his eyes flew open, throat tightening like a noose around all the feelings he had tried pushing away when he was younger, trapping his breath like a fluttering bird in his lungs.

* * *

_" This Sunday we will be touching upon the topic of a Biblical marriage!" The preacher's voice booms across the congregation, and fourteen year-old Alex's stomach sinks as he tries to slouch further down in the pew, as if he could just slip low enough that the words won't catch in his heart and weigh him down like so many stones. He briefly thinks about the millstone the preacher once mentioned. He tried to remember the context, but the only thing he comes up with is that it was for people who sinned. He gulped._

_"Now, 'what exactly_ is _Biblical marriage?' you might be asking yourself! Biblical marriage is a holy union between_ one _man, and_ one _woman-"_

_Pastor James' voice carries on, and Alex does his best to let the words pass through his ears without hearing them, the rocks weighing him down turning to boulders. His stomach turns._

_"-now, the men gotta love their wives!! Just like Christ loves the church, and cares for her. Marriage is a wonderful blessing, the greatest blessing we could ever experience in fact! It is perhaps the second greatest gift God has given to humans, and as such we must respect it._

_"There are many ways you can disrespect the holy marriage bed. Divorce of course is one of them. In fact, in Matthew chapter nineteen, verses one through eight-"_

_Alex tries to tune him out harder, knowing what's eventually coming and yet still hoping to avoid it. He counts the number of stained-glass windows -twelve without turning to either side, thirty-six if he rotates all the way- and taps his fingers on his leg to the cadence of Pastor James' words._

**_One, two, three, four. One and two, and three, and four-_ **

_He makes increasingly faster and more intricate beats, imagining drumsticks in his hands, base-drum pedal beneath his foot._

**_One and two-o-o, and four and, one and two and three-e, four-_ **

_His fingers are pattering rapidly, and he forces himself to swallow, trying to remember not to bounce his leg, trying not to distract his mom and dad, trying not to dwell on the words he can't avoid, trying not to scratch at his wrist, trying-_

_He can't breathe. He's trying to calm himself down but his fingers aren't a drumset and he can't play away the sin that coats his soul and he's just a kid but he can't breathe, he can't-_

_"And that leaves us with those who have disrespected the sacred act of marriage by letting themselves be lost in sexual perversion. I am, of course, referring to those disgusting individuals who have chosen to live the transsexual and homosexual lifestyles. People like these were born sick."_

_Alex's hands quit their anxious movement. He's completely still. He was born sick._

He was born sick.

* * *

" _The only heaving I'll be sent to / Is when I'm alone with you._ "

And he started breathing again.

_" I was born sick, but I love it / Command me to be well / A-a-a-amen amen amen"_

Air was rushing back into his lungs and maybe it was the way reliving that memory gave him closure, but it felt like the song was purging the preacher's burning words from where they'd branded his heart with wounds he never thought would scar-over.

Alex let his eyes close again, the lyrics and the lilt of the man's voice wash over him in a cleansing baptism. His fingers began pattering against his lap, joining in with the beat, weaving him together with the music, becoming one with it.

" _We've a lot of starving faithful._ "

He thought of himself when he was younger, sitting in church week after week begging God to fix him. He thought about the girl who bowed her head at the foot of the altar the Sunday after a lesbian couple was attacked, he thought of the way her fingers linked together like someone else's hand used to hold them, and he thought of the way she cried: silent, tears streaming down like shooting stars, her lips whispering unspoken prayers.

This song was for him, he realized. It was for him, and every moment he cried himself to sleep under his parents roof, thinking he was dirty, thinking he didn't have God's love, didn't have God's forgiveness.

It was for every time a prayer caught in his throat like a trapped butterfly, the prayers he could never bring himself to say because he was 'unworthy'.

_"I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife / Offer me that deathless death / Oh good God, let me give you my life"_

The lyrics seeped under his skin, replacing the lies that he had believed over the years. The lies about himself, about his faith, about his gayness-

Washed away like a world-destroying flood.

Because this song? This song was for every cold-shoulder from his parents instead of a warm hug, and it was for every time he had to watch him mom recoil from his touch, every time his father didn't quite meet his eye.

" _There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin._ "

The first tear slipped past his eyelashes, and he heaved a shuddering sigh.

" _Only then I am human / Only then I am clean._ "

He cried, but there was a smile on his face.

* * *

When Julie and the boys got back, the radio was long silent, but Alex still sat on the couch, tear-tracks on his cheeks and a relieved smile on his face.

He had sat there a long time, reliving moments in his life, and then letting them go, letting them be washed away. He was quiet when he was surrounded by the rest of Sunset Curve, letting himself be held by them; Julie comfortingly running her fingers through his hair, Reggie linking their fingers together and side-hugging him, and Luke tugging him halfway onto his lap. They were his family, and they loved him.

"You okay, Lex?"

Alex took a deep, slow breath, letting himself take in each of their faces, and he gave a small smile.

"Yeah, I really am."

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys liked it!! <3


End file.
